The present invention relates to a new and distinct cultivar of Agyranthemum plant, botanically known as Argyranthemum frutescens and herein after referred to by the name xe2x80x98M9/18Dxe2x80x99.
The new Argyranthemum is a product of a planned breeding program conducted by the inventor in Narre Warren East, Victoria, Australia. The objective of the program is to create and develop new compact Argyranthemum cultivars with numerous inflorescences with attractive floret coloration.
The new Argyranthemum originated from a cross by the inventor of the Argyranthemum frutescens cultivar xe2x80x98M7/02xe2x80x99, not patented, as a female, or seed, parent with an unidentified proprietary selection of Argyranthemum frutescens, not patented, as the male, or pollen parent. The new Argyranthemum was discovered and selected by the inventor as a plant within the progeny of the stated cross in a controlled environment in Narre Warren East, Victoria, Australia on Aug. 3, 2000. The selection of the new Argyranthemum was based on its compact mounded plant habit, multiple inflorescences and dark red-purple ray florets.
Asexual reproduction of the new Argyranthemum by terminal cutting taken in a controlled environment in Narre Warren East, Victoria, Australia, since Aug. 3, 2000, has shown that the unique features of this new Argyranthemum are stable and reproduced true to type in successive generations.
The new Argyranthemum has not been observed under all possible environmental conditions. The phenotype may vary somewhat with variations in environment such as temperature, day length, light intensity, photoperiod, and water and nutritional status without, however, any variance in genotype.
The following characteristics have been repeatedly observed and are determined to be the basic characteristics of xe2x80x98M9/18Dxe2x80x99 and distinguish the new Argyranthemum as a new and distinct cultivar:
(i) compact and mounded plants habit;
(ii) freely branching habit, dense and bushy plants;
(iii) very freely flowering with numerous inflorescences per plant;
(iv) red-purple colored ray florets that fade to pale pink with age;
(v) disc florets with colored yellow with red-purple centres.
Plants of the new Argyranthemum differ from plants of the parent cultivar M7/02 primarily in the size of the plant and ray floret color as plants of the cultivar M7/02 are shorter and narrower and have lighter red-purple colored ray floret. In addition, leaves of the new Argyranthemum are narrower and have apices which are rounded and margins which are crenate whereas plants of cultivar M7/02 have acute apices and margins which are dentate. Plants of the male parent, the unidentified selection of Argeranthemum, differ primarily from plants of the new Argyranthemum in ray floret color.
Plants of the new Argyranthemum are comparable to plants of the cultivar xe2x80x98M8/20xe2x80x99, disclosed in U.S. Plant Pat. No. 13,218. In side-by-side comparisons conducted by the inventor in Narre Warren East, Victoria, Australia, plants of the new Argyranthemum differ from plants of the cultivar xe2x80x98M8/20xe2x80x99 in the following characteristics:
(i) leaves of the new Argyranthemum are narrower than leaves of the cultivar xe2x80x98M8/20xe2x80x99;
(ii) leaves of the new Argyranthemum have rounded apices and crenate leaf margins whereas leaves of xe2x80x98M8/20xe2x80x99 have serrate leaf margins;
(iii) inflorescences of the new leaves of the new Argyranthemum are single in form whereas plants of the cultivar xe2x80x98M8/20xe2x80x99 are semi double in form;
(iv) plants of the new leaves of the new Argyranthemum have darker red-purple florets than the cultivar xe2x80x98M8/20xe2x80x99;
(v) the disc floret array of the new leaves of the new Argyranthemum have red centres which are absent from the disc floret array of xe2x80x98M8/20xe2x80x99.